Category Archives: Embroidery

Vietnam Textiles

There are many artistic avenues through which the Vietnamese express themselves such as silk painting, theatre, and wood carving. Below are explanations of the origins and development of a few key textiles and techniques. Vietnam textiles are beautiful.

Silk

Vietnam textiles have been amazing for centuries, Vietnam has been silk weaving and creating beautiful embroidery. During feudal times silk was thought of as a great luxury, only worn by kings, queens and mandarins. Through out history and its dynasties, Vietnam has always had rules concerning colour, ornamentation, style and fabric of clothes worn by aristocrats. The clothes of those in power featured the royal symbols of dragons, phoenixes and tortoises.

Vietnam’s best silk is called ‘Ha Dong’ silk and comes from of Ha Tay, southwest of Hanoi in the Red River Delta. It is believed that the art of silk weaving originated here some 2,000 years ago. However it was between the 16th 18th centuries when this region’s silk industry flourished. Today, techniques and quality have changed but there are many villages that always have and still do produce silk, for example La Ca.

To produce silk, the first stage is the weaving of the cloth to make every thread uniformly in line to ensure a smooth and soft fabric. It is then soaked, washed, dried, kept with forest resin, dyed, and sun dried twice. The resin is extracted at different points of the season for different colours. This chemical free process creates beautifully shiny and durable silk.

Embroidery

All over Vietnam, its people use embroidery as a form of cultural expression. It was introduced into the northprovinces of Vietnam during the 17th century from China, when originally silk embroidery only used five thread colours – yellow, red, green, violet and blue.

However embroidery is thought to have existed in the village of Van Lam for seven centuries. More than 75% of the population is skilled in the embroidery with lace, due to teachings being passed down through generations. Their work varies from the size of a hand to large wall hangings. Tribes like the Hmong and Dao also use their own unique intricate embroidery and braiding styles to embellish their clothing. The Hmong also use beautiful batik designs to decorate their clothing.

Applique

Applique is used by the Hmong to set apart and identify particular tribes, but was first developed as a way of story telling. Now it has developed into an art form for many communities. This ancient technique involves sewing on fabric shapes by hand to produce decorative patterns and shapes.

If you’d like to find out more about these techniques and get involved in the culture, Colouricious are running a textile trip to Vietnam in November 2015. If you would like to find out more, do not hesitate to visit our website or contact us below.

Use some wonderful embroidery threads

Using the right embroidery thread on your textile craft project can really make it stand out and look fabulous. There are so many different threads to choose from it is important you get the right colour and type of thread for your project.

Colouricious has a page on its website dedicated to embroidery threads covering many different types of threads including D Twist, Accent, Spaghetti, Mirage and Spotlite. We have videos for each of these threads explaining the best way to use them in a machine with the best settings to avoid snags or thread breakages. If you specialise in embroidery on your craft projects, this page is well worth a visit.

We have a super DVD that covers lots of aspects of embroidery.Creative Free Embroidery with Gina Ferrari is an easy to follow DVD that covers lots of different stitches in clear and concise chapters. If you are interested in this DVD then you can find more details about it on our website where you can make your purchase.

This is our first newsletter of December and in the tradition of the season, the rest of this newsletter is unashamedly very festive. We love Christmas and crafting offers us lots of different ways to make our Christmas very unique and we want to share some of them with you.

Christmas Tutorial

Our newest tutorial is how to make a Christmas Bauble. This would be the perfect thing to do with children and it would be wonderful to be able to decorate your Christmas Tree entirely with hand made decorations. You can see this tutorials by clicking the link below.How to a Christmas Bauble
If you have a particular tutorial you would like us to cover in more detail please contact us and let us know the tutorial you are looking for and we will do our best to get it uploaded and sorted out for you.

Ideas for Christmas

Christmas Wooden Blocks

We have many wooden blocks with a Christmas theme to them. There are lots of different ways you can use them to really make your gifts, cards and wrapping paper totally unique. We have Christmas Trees, Snowflakes and even a Nativity Scene. You can also mix your blocks with some lovely Christmas Stencils to really add a special touch. Take a look at the Christmas blocks we have here.

Learn, Create, Be Happy!

kind regards
Jamie MaldenColouricious
PS We have a favour to ask of you ……
when you watch one of our you tube videos actually on the you tube site, and you have enjoyed it, please can you click on the thumbs up! Thank you!

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As the name implies, bead embroidery is the craft that involves adding beads as an embellishment to a fabric or material. The beads do not form a critical part of the structure of the project so you can be extra creative when the beads are sewn on. There are three fundamental methods of embroidering beads onto fabric:

Individual – Beads are sewn on separately giving you very detailed control over the design you are creating.

Multiple – Several beads are threaded onto the needle at once and then the line of beads is sewn onto the fabric. This enables the crafter to beads onto the fabric quickly and is an excellent way to build up the start f your design.

Bead Strips – Lines of pre-threaded beads are laid onto the fabric and then stitched into place. This enables the crafter to quickly get a lot of beads onto a piece of fabric, but a design will be limited to the strips of beads that are available.

The craft of bead embroidery is practised all over the world and each technique has different names dependent upon where in the world it is done. In Europe techniques are known as Tambour and Luneville and are commonly used to embroider beads onto high quality dresses and accessories. In India bead embroidery is called Zari and Aari and can be identified by the beads being attached to the top of the fabric and a chain stitch is used to affix each bead to the fabric. To get the best results if you want to give bead embroidery a try, make sure the fabric is tightly stretched over a frame which will give you a good, tight, level surface for you to work on. It will also leave you with both hands free for embroidering, which can be helpful as the beads are small and the design soften very intricate.

Colouricious has a wonderful video about bead embroidering featuring Eliza McClelland who is an talented experienced British beader. You can learn some beading from her video below.To book Eliza to teach your group, you can contact her via her email address which is elizamcc@gmail.com

Bead embroidery is an excellent way to embellish block printed fabrics, highlighting the patterns and designs on the fabrics and making your designs stand out. You can see all of our printing blocks on our website.
We have had hours of creative fun block printing fabrics and then sewing beads onto the designs to embellish them. Very satisfying with gorgeous results. Choose your blocks from our ever expanding biggest selection in the universe!

Come to Kashmir

We are delighted that we have been able to organise a super trip to explore the traditional crafts of India in Kashmir. This is a fully escorted 13 day trip where we will explore the textile heritage of Kashmir as well as world famous the Hemis Festival.
The Hemis Monastery celebrates this event in the form of a 2-day festival. Its resident Lamas perform sacred masked dances leading to the destruction of the sacrificial offerings. Masks worn by the lamas represent various guardian divinities of the Dugpa order, of which Hemis is the leading establishment in Ladakh.
This 200 year-old tradition was introduced by a member of Ladakh’s ruling family who was reincarnated in the 18th century as the monastery’s Head Lama, “Sras Rimpoche”. The Hemis dances are a re-enactment of the magical feasts of Padmasambhava, in his services to the cause of Buddhism in his eight different manifestations.

During the tour you will get to see the crafts that have made Kahmir famous; carpet making and shawl making.
The Kashmir carpet industry is famous the world over. Kashmiri carpets are loved not only by the people of India but also by people in other countries. It is believed that the art of weaving Kashmiri carpets originated in Persia. Usually either silk or wool is used in making carpets. Sometimes a combination of silk and wool is used. Mercerized cotton is also sometimes used in making carpets. Mercerized cotton is a man-made fibre with sheen similar to that of silk. It is costlier than wool, but it is cheaper as compared to silk.
The base of these carpets is either made of cotton or silk. The ‘tree of life’ is a design that is very commonly found on Kashmiri carpets. Though the carpets made in Kashmir are expensive on account of their uniqueness and exquisite weaving, they are considered to be an investment.

Like Kashmiri carpets, shawls made in Kashmir are adored both in India and internationally. The Shahtoosh and Pashmina shawls made in Kashmir are world famous.
Shahtoosh shawls are made from the wool of the Tibetan antelope. These shawls are very light and soft. These shawls are extremely expensive because the wool used in making these shawls is scarce. The soft hair from the throat of the antelope is used for making these shawls. A few of these hairs fall off naturally when the antelopes graze. These hairs are collected and are then used in weaving shawls. Shahtoosh shawls may either be pure or mixed with Pashmina in order to reduce the cost. Shahtoosh shawls are so finely woven that the entire shawl can pass through a ring. It is for this reason that such shawls are known as ‘Ring shawls’. These shawls are usually not dyed and are used in their natural color i.e. light brown.
Pashmina shawls are made from the wool of the Kel sheep found in the Himalayan mountains. Such shawls are extremely soft and do not hurt the skin of the wearer. Pashmina scarves and stoles are also made. Pashmina shawls are less expensive as compared to Shahtoosh shawls.
Pashmina shawls usually have beautiful and heavy embroidery on them, while Shahtoosh shawls do not.
There is so much more we could tell you about this super trip to Kashmir. We have an outline schedule on our website, but if you want all of the details, then just fill in the form on the schedule tab of the holiday and you will be able to download a full itinerary showing you all of the hotels and places we will be visiting.
If this trip is of interest to you, go to the Kashmir Tour page and reserve your place now. We have just launched the holiday,but I am sure spaces will fill very quickly.

Alphabet Stamps

Our alphabet stamps give you the perfect opportunity to personalise all your gifts and cards. We have several different designs of fonts as well as some blocks of ancient styled text that will be beautiful as a background image on a paper design.
Take a good look at the alphabet stamps we have here.

Ideal Christmas Gifts

With Christmas fast approaching we have some great dieas that would make perfect presents for your crafting friends and family. Just click on any of the imides to be taken straight to our website

kind regards
Jamie MaldenColouricious
PS We have a favour to ask of you ……
when you watch one of our you tube videos actually on the you tube site, and you have enjoyed it, please can you click on the thumbs up! Thank you!

Be the first to be in the know. Get more of what you love!

Subscribe to our youtube channel to automatically receive notifications of when we upload new textile art ideas.

Did you know that Vietnam is full of the most beautiful textiles imaginable. This coming October, Colouricious is hosting a textile tour of Vietnam, traveling from the North all the way down to the South of this stunning country. The textiles that we explore en route are particularly bright and colourful, and what we love in particular is the breath taking embroidery. Visit our Colouricious website to learn more about thisdream textile holiday.

In the North of Vietnam, there is an area called Sapa Valley, which is where the Hmong tribes live. The first part of our holiday, we visit this tribal area where everywhere you go, you will see ladies stitching in the street.

If you love silk, then you will adore seeing the silk production that is so big in Vietnam. You will be visiting silk worm farms and seeing the production of silk fabric – and of course there is the very important element of retail therapy. You will come home with armfuls of real silk. If you are looking to treat yourself to a special holiday, there are still a few vacancies left on this Colouricious textile tour of Vietnam. Visit our Colouricious website now to learn more about textiles in Vietnam, watch all the videos we have prepared for you and you can even book online now!

Come on a Colouricious textile holiday to meet the people behind the scenes who love textiles and sewing and weaving and making gorgeous items!

Bags – Quilting arts and Patchwork

These patchwork bags have been made differently, both in which you can try at home.

You can make this patchwork bag or use a Vogue pattern. Then you can block print on top of your fabric using our Colouricious printing blocks. This is because it makes it easier for you to centralise your block print after you have stitched the sewing pattern together.

This bag was made by block printing with our Colouricious printing blocks onto the fabric and then the fabric sewn together to make the bag. We recommend you use our Colouricious fabric paint as they are easy to fix with a simple iron and they are machine washable so you can keep on using your bag!
If you love art and crafts and looking for new ideas and blogs, supplies and inspiration, join our Colouricious Club a free weekly online news letter.

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